


Living's In the Way We Die

by Meridians_of_Madness



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Cold War, Canon-Typical Violence, Light Angst, M/M, Spies & Secret Agents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:00:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26345983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meridians_of_Madness/pseuds/Meridians_of_Madness
Summary: In a war that never began so it can never end, Crowley picked his side a long time ago.-Written for the kink meme prompt foundhere.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 54





	Living's In the Way We Die

Crowley was too clever by far to bring the Bentley to a screeching halt in front of the safehouse a few miles beyond Guildford city limits, but he was half-certain he left twin tracks of hellfire along the A3 legging it from London. Instead, he pulled up behind the broken-down cottage with a stealthy calm, and as he walked up to the door, he took a deep breath and assumed the easy, indifferent menace that had served him so well in his long career.

Well.

Had served him well so far. Pray a God he didn't believe in that it continued.

The door opened under his touch, and suddenly there were two Tokarevs aimed at his head with professional speed, the light from the single bulb glinting off the steel muzzles.

Crowley gave them an indifferent glance as he shut the door behind him, his eyes roving the cottage, taking in the shine of an open tool roll on the shabby table, the shuttered windows, and not in the least the man bound in the chair at the center of the room, flanked on either side by figures Crowley knew all too well.

“Left the door open,” he said. “Shoddy, that.”

Hastur snorted, holstering his pistol. Ligur followed a moment later, but he watched Crowley with suspicion Crowley did not care for. Hastur thought he was a flash bastard already seduced by Western comfort and corruption. Crowley suspected that Ligur thought he was something else, and the only reason Crowley hadn't been recalled to Moscow or sent to points farther east and nastier was because Ligur hadn't decided exactly just what he was yet.

“Mr. Slick himself,” sneered Hastur. “What's Mr. Slick want tonight?”

Crowley let himself grin.

“I'm here to do you two a favor,” he said cheerfully. “I'm taking this little one off your hands.”

Hastur glanced down at the man they had bound, who was looking more worried by the moment. Crowley noted that they had already had a bit of fun; Aziraphale's lower lip split and his eye good and blacked, but his clothes were still pristine. That was a relief, and he would take any good omens he could get this blasted night.

“We've barely begun,” Hastur said, but Ligur narrowed his eyes.

“Who says?” he asked. “Beelzebub said he was for us.”

“Yeah, that's what Beelzebub told you,” Crowley said easily. “My orders come from a bit higher.”

He paused meaningfully.

“You don't want me to say the name.”

He thought he had won in the slight tightening of Ligur's mouth, the more evident hunch in Hastur's shoulders. They all talked a big game, but too much attention from on high- well, the nail that stuck up got pounded. If you were the one usually doing the pounding, you knew too much about the process to risk it, didn't you?

Crowley was just beginning to hope that this would go off without a hitch when Ligur shook his head.

“There's procedure-”he started, but then Aziraphale rocked in the chair, throwing his weight hard enough that he nearly toppled backwards.

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “No, Please. Not him. I'll tell you everything I know, please. Just not him.”

Wild blue eyes shifted from Hastur to Ligur, looking for a mercy that Crowley could have told him wasn't there, but Aziraphale was, he thought, rather more like him than not. He wouldn't depend on mercy, but on laziness and sadism, every time.

“ _Please,”_ Aziraphale said, his voice breaking a little. “You don't know what they say about him, you don't _know,_ just-”

Hastur casually belted him across the face, and Crowley did his very best to look indifferent to it all. If this whole thing ended without the old frog on a train to Siberia, Crowley waving cheerfully from the station, he wouldn't be half the spy he liked to think he was.

“Shut up,” Hastur said. “Poxy little filing clerk, who cares what you know?”

“Someone does,” Crowley said, “but that's not your lookout any longer, is it? It's mine. Get him up.”

Aziraphale tried to protest again, and this time it was Crowley who stepped in to slap him across the face. It would have been savage if Aziraphale hadn't tilted his head in perfect time with Crowley's blow, a neat bit of theater that Crowley had to admire even in the middle of this nightmare.  
“The man told you to shut up,” he said, and then he nodded at Ligur and Hastur.

“Cut him loose. He and I have a long drive tonight.”

There was a moment when he thought they might balk, where Hastur might not want to be cheated of his prey, where Ligur would want to check in with the powers that be, but then they shrugged and cut Aziraphale loose, letting Crowley train his own pistol on the Englishman's head.

“All right, you,” he said.”Car's waiting. So am I.”

He forced a quietly weeping Aziraphale into the car, slamming the door behind him with a theatrical flourish before getting into the driver's seat himself.

Aziraphale looked like a man broken, shoulders hunched, head lowered and murmuring quiet pleas until they had gotten a few miles down the road.

“You can leave off now,” Crowley said. “I checked the car for bugs before I left London.”

“Oh, excellent,” said Aziraphale, straightening and pulling out a handkerchief to wipe his eyes and clean his lip. “Diligent of you, my dear.”

Crowley snorted.

“Better than you. What's the hot idea anyway, getting yourself taken by Murky and Lurky? They're the real thing, you know, slit your throat as soon as look at you.”

“They're as much the real thing as I am a filing clerk,” Aziraphale said scornfully. “They're less impressive when I've known the real thing for as long as I have.”

Crowley tried not to pink at the ears as Aziraphale all but batted his eyes in his direction.

“Auditions for the local femme fatale are over for the night, but question stands, what in the world were you thinking?”

“I was thinking that you ought not be at Charing Cross Tuesday next,” Aziraphale said mildly. “Perhaps you had better find a quieter place to have some coffee and leave that distasteful young man with the neckerchief to his own devices.”

The _distasteful young man,_ as Aziraphale put it, had a rather lot of ties with American nationalists that the home office wouldn't mind exploiting, and Crowley bit his lip.

“Is that your recommendation?” he asked.

“It's good advice,” Aziraphale said peaceably.

The rain started coming down. It was an hour to London, and Crowley was suddenly tired. Stupid games. Stupid all of it.

“Where shall I drop you?” he said wearily. “For that matter, where did those two pick you up? Can't imagine they wanted to get too close to Curzon Street ...”

“Oh, them,” Aziraphale said with distaste. “Do you know, I had to wander most of the way to Barbican Centre before they picked me up?”

“Before they- Wait, what the everloving fuck, Aziraphale? Did you plant yourself out there like a mushroom for the picking?”

“Like a duck for the plucking, let's say,” Aziraphale said with a slightly smug satisfaction. “Honestly, Crowley, your side is getting rather too predictable, isn't it? Black van, Tokarevs in the face, my goodness.”

Crowley wanted to slam his head into the steering wheel, and instead had to settle for groaning out loud.

“What were you _thinking-”_ he started, and then he cut himself off.

“I was thinking about how Charing Cross can be so dangerous of a Tuesday,” Aziraphale said lightly. “And about how predictable some communists are.”

He paused.

“Should I say thank you?” he asked in that carefully modulated way of his.

Crowley swallowed.

“Best not,” he said finally. Bugs or not, there were some things he couldn't risk. His heart, black and corrupted thing that it was, couldn't take it.

“Where am I dropping you?” he asked again.

“Anywhere you like,” Aziraphale said, turning to look out the window. “I know my way home.”


End file.
